Former TNT writer Ernest Jasmin, who covered the local music scene, dies at 53
If you spent any time at all in the dark bars or worn-down clubs that made up Tacoma’s live music scene, at least 15 or 20 years ago, there were a few things you could count on.
There was the muttonchopped bouncer at Hell’s Kitchen who loved comics and the crusty punk kid who loitered out front and went on to start a band of his own.
There were the all-business bartenders at Jazzbones who knew exactly what transpired in the corners upstairs.
There was the headbanger-turned-promoter — a handful of them, actually — dreaming up ladies’ night bills like most people make dinner plans while trying to stay sober.
There were the skinny kids in stretched white T-shirts putting on house shows, the long-running blues jams and about a dozen Buckcherry ripoff acts (not to mention KRY at the Swiss every Thursday night).
Then, there was EJ — known to a generation of News Tribune readers under the byline Ernest A. Jasmin — ever-present and always genuine.
Jasmin, a music and entertainment writer at The News Tribune from 2000 to 2011, died suddenly late last month, his sister, Iris Jasmin, confirmed this week. He was 53.
According to Iris Jasmin, her younger brother — who most recently worked as a content manager for the Puyallup Tribe of Indians — was found at his Tacoma apartment on April 30 by colleagues who performed a welfare check after he failed to report to the office.
She attributed the death to unknown natural causes. The family suspects an underlying heart condition may have contributed, she said.
The news came as a shock, Iris Jasmin indicated.
She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, not far from the family’s childhood home — where her brother, the son of a prominent prosecutor with the same name, grew up with a knack for writing she recognized early on.
The stunned reaction to Jasmin’s death has been similar in her brother’s adopted city of Tacoma.
It’s an outpouring Iris Jasmin has watched from afar via social media, she indicated.
“At first it made me so sad. I thought he died alone. But then, I remembered sometimes family is not just the people you’re born into; family is the people you choose, and friends are a form of family. So it brought me joy to know that when he didn’t show up at work, somebody went looking for him,” she said.
“That gives me comfort.”
‘UMATCHED EXUBERANCE FOR MUSIC’
I can’t remember the first time I met Jasmin, who was known to most as simply EJ.
I’m sure it was at a show at some Tacoma venue, because that’s where he seemed to live, but the finer details elude me.
At the time, I was a mediocre but aspiring music journalist working for pennies per word at the local alternative press rag, disdainful of all things mainstream and decidedly lame, like big daily newspapers, for starters.
I’m guessing EJ was standing near the side of a local stage the first time our paths crossed, as he would, his head bobbing to whatever strained mix of distortion and angst flooded through the speakers and a giant smile on his face.
Jasmin had an annoying and infectious way of cutting through the nonsense and pretension like that. As a big-time journalist with a
job he covered all the major shows, from Bumbershoot and Sasquatch to pop sensations playing the T-Dome. Still, he made no bones about being a local music guy deep down.
In 2007, Jasmin was one of the first journalists in the area to cover Taylor Swift, who he interviewed in advance of a Tacoma Dome gig she opened for George Strait. “I’m so stupid,” Swift, who had turned 17 the month prior, told Jasmin. “I write these blatantly obvious songs about people, and then I just get so surprised they figured it out. It’s so funny.”
Over more than a decade at the TNT, Jasmin sat down with members of Pearl Jam, Guns & Roses, Nirvana and the rapper Ice T. The band Alice in Chains was a personal favorite; in 2005, Jasmin spoke to guitarist Jerry Cantrell in the leadup to the band’s first performance since the death of frontman Layne Staley.
After being let go by The News Tribune in 2011 — his last byline in the archives is an interview with drummer Dick Peterson of the Kingsmen, the band responsible for the Pacific Northwest garage rock classic “Louie Louie,” which seems fitting — Jasmin oversaw music coverage at Tacoma Weekly for several years.
All the while, Jasmin made his love of Tacomaarea bands and artists — and his passion for Tacoma’s hardscrabble creative streak — clear.
It made him hard to hate, in my young (and lasting) estimation.
Justin Gimse, who played drums for the local band Big Wheel Stunt Show during Jasmin’s tenure at the TNT and later worked with him at Tacoma Weekly, said Jasmin brought the same strident ethic and passion to music coverage to the small community paper.
“When I witnessed the research that Ernest would put in before conducting an interview, it changed how I conducted my own work immediately. He was proud of being a true journalist, and it showed,” said Gimse, who managed Tacoma Weekly’s sports page during Jasmin’s tenure at the paper.
“The craft has been lessened with his passing.”
According to Quincy Henry, who first encountered Jasmin during his time at the TNT when he was an upstart rapper trying to scrap his way to success, EJ’s dedication to his job and covering the artists toiling in his city earned him instant respect.
“I think part of what makes (Jasmin’s) legacy in town so dope is that is that he that guy that would cover KISS if they were coming to town, but everybody had a relationship with him, in some form or fashion, because he made himself accessible,” said Henry, who now owns and operates Campfire Coffee.
“If EJ said he was coming through, he was to come through. And obviously, that means something when you got the guy who’s writing for the big daily in town wanting to come check out your local hip-hop show,” Henry said.
“It felt like he took a genuine interest.”
Kurt “K.P.” Kendall, frontman of Tacoma’s Girl Trouble, shared similar sentiments this week.
Kendall said the band first met Jasmin during an interview at a well-known local bar and quickly developed a rapport with the music writer, which is unusual for Girl Trouble, he indicated.
Kendall attributed the instant connection to Jasmin’s varied musical taste and palpable affinity for the local scene — along with what he described as the “soothing magic” his late friend possessed.
“Perhaps the best thing I discovered over time when bumping into him, wherever he would be, was his unmatched exuberance for music, art, people and his environment. Every time we would see him his eyes would light up and the big grin on his face would make any negative mood melt away,” Kendall said.
“You’d just want to bottle his positive energy up and share it with others.”
‘A FIXTURE’
Debbie Cafazzo got to know Jasmin as well as anyone during his time at The News Tribune.
Cafazzo was a reporter at the TNT when Jasmin arrived from Bellingham, where he’d worked for the Herald fresh out of college at the University of Kentucky. Eleven years later, she commiserated with her friend over beers at the Parkway on his last day at the paper.
On Tuesday, Cafazzo recalled a journalist committed to his beat — until the end.
As the newsroom staff dwindled in the years following the Great Recession, there was pressure to change, but Jasmin fought with conviction to make space for the local music coverage, she said, something he believed readers deserved and expected.
Beyond the byline, Cafazzo described Jasmin as warm, engaging and endlessly endearing. He could be difficult to work with at times, she acknowledged; all decent, driven journalists are.
In particular, Cafazzo recalled an assignment they were tasked with by an editor of the TNT’s “Go” entertainment section.
Cafazzo is a diehard Beatles fan with musical tastes from a bygone era. She’s not particularly shy about it.
Jasmin took her to Hell’s Kitchen, for her first thrash-metal concert.
He provided Cafazzo with earplugs, she recalled, and advice about what to do if a mosh pit broke out.
“He knew every bit of Tacoma music history trivia. He and I once discussed writing a book about historic music locales in T-town” Cafazzo said.
“He crafted a few mixes for me over the years,” she added, “opening my old lady ears to new sounds.”
Craig Egan, who spent his life in Tacoma before recently relocating to Arizona, met Jasmin in a local bar, or so he assumes. It almost had to be.
Way back when, Egan booked an annual DIY event at Bob’s Java Jive, known as “Maltoberfest” — think Oktoberfest but with forties of Old E.
Jasmin took an interest, wrote about Egan’s shenanigans in The News Tribune and — as was so often the case — they struck up a fast friendship.
Egan said one of his lasting memories traces back to 2010, when Jasmin allowed him to tag along on an assignment to see Yo Gabba Gabba Live at the Tacoma Dome.
Amid a sea of children, the two grown men were wildly out of place at the live performance of the hipster-friendly Nickelodeon children’s television show, Egan recalled. That’s what made it so hilarious.
He remembers EJ loved every minute of it. They joked about it for years after the fact.
When it came time to do his job?
Jasmin was all business, Egan remembered.
“He’s going to be missed and he was loved. … I think we all knew he was an awesome guy, but now it’s really dawning on us, because he’s gone, how much of a fixture he was,” Egan said.
“You could go to a show and there he would be,” he added.
“It’s just overwhelmingly sad.”